Carnegie Hall treated for bed bugs

‘Since the summer, Carnegie Hall has been undertaking monthly preventative searches for bedbugs, using a canine unit,’ spokesperson Synneve Carlino said in a statement obtained by Gothamist. ‘There have been no bedbugs found in any of Carnegie Hall’s three auditoriums. In our monthly backstage search last week, we found evidence of bedbugs in some employee lockers and in an isolated location backstage.’

‘We immediately treated these areas, and asked employees to remove their belongings from the lockers for two weeks, the time necessary to ensure a complete treatment. Given the reports of bedbugs throughout the city, we will be continuing to conduct screenings throughout the building on an ongoing basis.’

Two points:

1) If traditional chemical and dust treatments or contact kill methods like freezing or steam are being used, a “complete treatment” may take more than two weeks.

2) If your employees have bed bugs at home and have not gotten rid of them, reinfestation takes no time at all.

The solution is not for employees to be fired, of course.

The city needs to do more to help enforce laws about treatment in rental units, and to assist people responsible for paying for their own (or tenants’) treatment who can’t afford it.

The alternative is that bed bugs keep spreading until they’re everywhere.

OF COURSE it is the employees that have brought in the BedBugs, and OF COURSE they are not present in the auditorium with a few thousand seats, with different people from all over the world in them every night. Just like at the Met, where the “only” bugs found were in some employee lockers and in an isolated location backstage. Just sayin’

I was at a concert at Carnegie Hall (Weil Hall) last Friday, seats E 106, 108. I came out with two itchy bites on the back of my neck. I was thinking mosquito, not beg bug, bites. But later in the weekend, I started to see the tell-tale cluster of bites on my arms. I had Champ, the wonder dog, sniff out my apartment. He identified two places in my bedroom with bed bugs, one being the now bagged clothes I wore to the concert. We treated the apartment and I call Carnegie Hall it report it. They told me they had just had the place sniffed and found nothing. Of course, it’s impossible to trace the beg bugs back with 100% certainty, but I won’t be going back to Carnegie Hall anytime soon.